I just put a new als 1300 solid state amp on line. I am curious as to peoples thoughts on doing a burn in by leaving it on for an extended time (10 - 20 hours or more) in standby or operating. Not necessarily transmitting. Just letting everything get settled in so to speak. I realize there is a difference but this is often done with computer equipment and high end audio equipment.I look forward to your input.

Computers are "factory" burned-in while being exercised to help weed out infant mortalities which mostly occur in components having moving parts, like disk drives. But we don't just power them up, we read and write to those drives continuously at very high transfer rates to exercise the hell out of them, in hopes that any weak ones will die while we still have them in the factory (as opposed to at a customer site). If not for the very heavy "exercise," they'd never fail.

One thing I would do is AFTER a few hours of high power operation (Maybe do a contest?) go in and check all the screws mounting the FETs for tightness.A few thermal cycles will tend to shake anything that needs tightening loose.

I just put a new Ameritron ALS 1300 solid state amp on line. I am curious as to peoples thoughts on doing a burn in by leaving it on for an extended time (10 - 20 hours or more) in standby or operating. Not necessarily transmitting. Just letting everything get settled in so to speak.

Welcome to 21st century. Not needed, as long as proper Quality Control (ISO900) mfg. process and principals followed.

I just put a new Ameritron ALS 1300 solid state amp on line. I am curious as to peoples thoughts on doing a burn in by leaving it on for an extended time (10 - 20 hours or more) in standby or operating. Not necessarily transmitting. Just letting everything get settled in so to speak.

Welcome to 21st century. Not needed, as long as proper Quality Control (ISO900) mfg. process and principals followed.

Heee heee remember where talking MFJ here. I really doubt there close to any kind of ISO certification.

Waste of your time and also warranty time. Use it like HCN and WIK suggested. The game plan should be to find any weakness before the warranty is gone.

They do this with NASCAR engines. They assemble them, mount them on a test rack, pipe and wire them up, start 'em and then wind the engine up to maximum RPMs. It sets there screaming until they take all of the readings, shut it down and crate it for use.

The PA is ramped to +80C and at full power, and 12 are in a heat chamber. The heat from the PAs is what "heat" the chamber. Cooling air keeps the chamber at this temperature until the chamber is cooled to ambient for a period of time. This cycle is repeated 4 times in a 24 hour period.

This pretty much weeds out design issues and infant mortality. The manufacturing process is ROHS compliant and the product uses lead free solder. There was a lot of worry about SMT when lead free solder was introduced. But so far no issues here.

Oh, and it is ***very*** expensive. It adds in the neighboorhood of 10% to 20% to the cost of goods sold.

The cost of these PAs are in the consumer market relm. So then the question is the cost justified? Given that these PAs go through intensive design verification; I don't think so. But end customers require burn-in. It's their money...

Maybe for the paranoid purchasers Ameritron could offer a option where the purchased unit goes through "burn-in". I have had, AL-1200, AL-800, AL-811, AL-500 and a AL-572. I wouldn't pay for the option. The only issue I have has so far was not for Ameritron, but is was with the flatulant 572Bs (took out the dynamic bias circuit). I have since installed the arc supression devices as suggested at W8JI's web site in my AL572 with no further issues.

I have over 20 years manufacturing experience in electronics manufacturing in both consumer goods and goverment goods. You generally get what you pay for, consumer goods generally have higher failure rates but then goverment goods (MIL spec) cost substantially more. I wouldn't expect many hams to open their wallets to ***real*** MIL spec desiged, tested and manufactured equipment. But yet somehow this is the expectation for ham radio stuff... Go figure...

"Heee heee remember where talking MFJ here. I really doubt there close to any kind of ISO certification. "

ISO does not have a lot to do with the end useabilty of a product. It is more about documenting the design and manufacturing process from product inception then to design, then to new product introduction then to mass production and finally to warranty. If MFJ has documented processes, and follows them, then ISO shouldn't be a problem.

When the OP mentioned high-end audio equipment, a light went on in my head. Possibly tube audio equipment might need such a procedure. But I have never heard of any burn-in or break-in period needed for solid state equipment or computers. The tolerances of today's machine built circuit boards and components makes the days of plus or minus a thing of the past.It's getting rare to plug a piece of electronics into the wall and it fails. The process is not perfect, but better than 20 yrs ago.

When the OP mentioned high-end audio equipment, a light went on in my head. Possibly tube audio equipment might need such a procedure. But I have never heard of any burn-in or break-in period needed for solid state equipment or computers. The tolerances of today's machine built circuit boards and components makes the days of plus or minus a thing of the past.It's getting rare to plug a piece of electronics into the wall and it fails. The process is not perfect, but better than 20 yrs ago.

The audiophools insist that even in solidstate gear the capacitors need to be "worked" somewhat before they are able to pass all that great sound they insist is not present until the gear is burned in.

When the OP mentioned high-end audio equipment, a light went on in my head. Possibly tube audio equipment might need such a procedure. But I have never heard of any burn-in or break-in period needed for solid state equipment or computers. The tolerances of today's machine built circuit boards and components makes the days of plus or minus a thing of the past.It's getting rare to plug a piece of electronics into the wall and it fails. The process is not perfect, but better than 20 yrs ago.

The audiophools insist that even in solidstate gear the capacitors need to be "worked" somewhat before they are able to pass all that great sound they insist is not present until the gear is burned in.

WOW! Ve1IDX...I was trying not to say that.... And I'll agree about the commercial folks that they want a burn-in time to get any bugs out. Cellular folks definitely want 100% reliability.

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